Women's Olympic soccer squad needs wins

George Johnson, Calgary Herald06.26.2012

Canada's Christine Sinclair celebrates her goal against Mexico during the second half of CONCACAF women's Olympic qualifying soccer at B.C. Place in Vancouver, B.C., Jan. 27, 2012.Jonathan Hayward
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

Team Canada skipper Christine Sinclair says the players feel more like a national team since they began training on home soil in Vancouver. Last year, the team faltered after a $2-million, four-month training exercise based at then coach Carolina Morace’s home outside of Rome.ODD ANDERSEN
/ AFP/Getty Images

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An infusion of cautious optimism tempered by the memory of old frailties; past failures.

We’ve lived this all before heading into a mettle-testing, reputation-defining tournament. As have they.

“Yeah ...,’’ replied skipper Christine Sinclair, asked if the self-belief within this Canadian Olympic women’s soccer side, named Monday to carry the colours into London, was sufficiently strong to take on the world.

“We still haven’t done it, though.

“I think we’re a very confident team right now. We feel on any given day we can beat the Japans, the USAs, the Swedens.

“But realistically we haven’t shown that in a huge tournament like the Olympics or the World Cup in quite some time.

“I mean, we’re a confident team and we feel we can beat them. But those are just words.

“We have to actually do it.’’

July 25, against reigning World Cup champion and third-ranked Japan would be a peachy place to start.

Because in this group, at these Olympics, there is no place to hide. The Japanese are up first, at Coventry’s Ricoh Arena, home of the Sky Blues. A bit of a respite in Canada’s second match, versus 65th-ranked South Africa. But then, fourth-ranked Sweden to finish the first stage.

Last year, remember, Canada sailed into the 2011 women’s World Cup in Germany invested with an identical sort of cautious optimism. That team was advertised as being more continental in flavour, vastly better prepared after a $2-million, four-month training/bonding exercise outside coach Carolina Morace’s home base of Rome, buoyed by unexpected success at the CONCACAF championship, and ranked higher in the FIFA fiefdom — sixth — than ever before.

Then it all came unglued in 90 terrifying minutes. The Canadians weren’t so much humbled by French flair as pronounced dead of exposure. A first-game 2-1 morale-lifting loss to the powerhouse Germans in front 73,000-plus at Berlin’s Olympiastadion only served to heighten the denouement of a 4-0 pistol-whipping by the free-flowing French.

Canada finished 0-3, losing its last group game to Nigeria, and slunk home. Morace, continually at odds with the Canadian Soccer Association, having seen her power leverage compromised by a poor performance, resigned.

Back to Square 1, again, and not much time before Olympic qualifying.

“Obviously, the World Cup was a big failure for us,’’ acknowledged Sinclair. “We played very well leading up to the tournament. We had, realistically, one bad game, against France. But I don’t think we weren’t as low as people thought we were.’’

Enter John Herdman, as Geordie as Newcastle Brown Ale or the Tyne Bridge, to sweep up the shattered shards and try piecing the thing back together.

The inability to deliver on the biggest of stages, at those penultimate moments, was, he knew instinctively, the new coach’s first order of business.

“Over the years,’’ he admitted during a Monday conference call, “the team has potentially struggled in those big moments where you hope players will go look for the ball, go get on the ball, when things start getting ugly. They’ve gone on this podium adventure on a number of occasions and never seemed to cross the line. They get close, but never cross the line. And I guess for a lot of players it’s like ‘Well, what are the things consistent in this team? What are the things when we turn around, look at these tournaments, that we’re missing or we just never have enough of?’

“We have to address those things. The players have to recognize that they have to invest in the areas that have let them down.”

The collapse of the Women’s Professional Soccer League in May has allowed the players to convene and train as a group in Vancouver. While Herdman lauds the opportunity to work with all his charges on a daily basis, he does concede there is simply no substitute for top-class games, something the WPS provided.

Sinclair insists the shift to a B.C. home base has been beneficial psychologically.

“I think we’re in a completely different space (than last June-July),’’ she maintained. “Heading into the last World Cup, players were away from their homes for a long period of time, being in Rome. This time around I think we have that balance. Right now, we feel like the Canadian national team. We’ve been based out of Vancouver. We had qualifiers in Vancouver. We feel as if we’re a part of the country, whereas last year we were so removed from it. We had no idea what was going on back home.

“That’s a huge difference.

“We’ve trained hard and then we live our lives. That’s what we’ve done in Vancouver and it’s been very nice.’’

Whatever does happen in Coventry and Newcastle and London next month and early into August, the end of these Games will mark a changing of the guard for a team that has for a few years now glimpsed the gates of Olympus, only to be found wanting and turned away.

“These Olympics,’’ said Herdman, “are the culmination of four years of preparation by different coaches. Once they finish, it’s pretty much a new chapter.

“There will be some players that retire after these Olympics, I’m absolutely sure of that. There’ll be some players that the game will have moved beyond their physical or even technical capabilities. So I’m anticipating quite a lot of retirements, around 400 or 500 caps with this team. If that’s the case, then it’s a new beginning for Canada.’’

Coinciding with the push toward the next women’s World Cup, to be staged in Canada in 2015.

This Canadian side, we’re promised, will be fitter, tougher mentally. The residency program in Vancouver has knit them tighter. It’s a hellish group to get out of, yes, but . . .

New voice. Different philosophy. Encouraging tournament win propelling them into another, bigger extravaganza.

The beginning to this storyline has an aching sameness to it, yes.

What’s in need of a rewrite is the ending.

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